


Brainless

by Sokorra



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Most ships are just mentioned, reference to original child character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 10:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7432967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sokorra/pseuds/Sokorra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johanna shows up at Gale's door years after the last games.  (Rating mostly for Johanna's language)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brainless

**Author's Note:**

> A short snipit of a longer fic that ended up dying up idea wise while I was still writing it. Yet, I wanted to share what I did write down and see what people thought. I think I have somewhere a snipit of Effie, Arika and Haymitch and may post that at a later date. Who knows, maybe one day the muse will come back and get some more out of me for this universe.

“Hey Gorgeous. Gonna let me in?” 

 

Those were her first words to him. After not seeing him for three and a half years, she acted like it had just been yesterday that they had parted ways. Just leaning in his doorway, a set of roll luggage behind her and a large woven bag hanging off the arm she had leaning against the doorframe. Her hair was long again, really long. It was coiled into a complicated knot, but he could still tell she had let it grow. She looked good, healthy even, much better then when he had seen her last. He stepped aside to let her in.

 

It was a large home, open, built to be comfortable and lively. Built for his family. Not that his mother or siblings had set foot near it. They had gone home. They were awaiting his return, but never understood that he couldn’t go home. He closed the door behind her and walked away.

 

“This isn’t the home of the wayward disenchanted.”

 

“Then where exactly do you live?” she asked, following him in. “Because honey, if you aren’t the picture defination of disenchanted, I don’t know what is.”

 

He spun around to face her. “Why are you here.”

 

“Because it seemed the place to go. I can leave if you want.” she made a halfhearted attempt at turning around.

 

“No.” He sighed, crossing his arms. “No, you can stay.” She raised an eyebrow at his tone but tossed her carry-on bag onto the couch, one of the few pieces of furniture he had. Her eyes never left his.

 

“The Kid’s birthday is in a few days. I figured it I should finally met her. Have you?”

 

“Yes.” He didn’t feel like going into detail. He was surprised he knew what she was talking about. ‘The Kid’ could mean anyone, but somehow he knew she was talking about Effie Trinket’s toddler. The one who's father was Panem’s worst kept secret. Everyone knew nothing, yet knew all the same. One look at Arika Trinket and it was quite easy to figure out her father. She had his eyes for one thing. But Effie wasn’t saying anything, and neither was he, so Gale figured it was none of his business to mention.

 

“Katniss claims she’s the spitting image of her father.”

 

“Not quite.” He no longer felt a twinge at the mention of Katniss like he had six years ago during the six months he and Joanna had a fling. Till one morning he woke up to find her gone. Hardly a word was heard of her except through their mutual acquaintances. Primarily Effie and Annie Cresta-Odair. “I thought she was taking her back to 12?”

 

“Indeed. And I am to take you.”

 

“NO.” He couldn’t go home. Couldn’t see how much was lost during that war, how much  _ he _ had lost.

 

“You should never start a negotiation on such a harsh stance, Hawthorne.” Johanna slid past him into the kitchen, moving her body like a snake about to strike its prey.

 

Johanna still had that air of sexuality about her. Even though it had been years since she was a ‘Victor’, years since she had to use every tool she had to survive. It was oddly comforting that some things never changed. He knew she wasn’t doing it to seduce him. If she was she would have pushed boundaries...well, more than she had, and been less subtle. It was just ingrained in her to be that way.

 

“This is not a negotiation, Mason.”

 

“Sure it is. I’m not sure why you are so against it. Your family is there, you actually like Effie now.” Gale had to admit she was right. It took a long time, but after knowing the former escort for a few years he had grown to see her outside her role in the games. And part of that had been seeing her trying to do the best for her own child, sitting and talking to her about her role in the games as well.

 

It appeared that he was as guilty as anyone of judging books by covers. And despite what Katniss thought, he was capable of recognizing and apologising for making a mistake or a hasty assumption.

 

“And most importantly, you are going to say no to the Kid?”

 

“Yes. Trust me, the ‘Kid’ barely remembers me and even if she did, I’m sure having a birthday where Auntie Katniss is fighting with some near stranger is not going to be on her dream list.”

 

“For God’s sake, you two need to grow up and let the past be the past.”

 

“How’s bathing going for you, sweetheart?.”

 

“Fuck you. There’s a difference between not being able to stay in the same room as someone because you refuse to be adults and get over yourselves, and having a fear of water because someone TORTURED you with it.” Joanna was clearly angry and he felt somewhat guilty for bringing her phobia up.  That was unnecessarily cruel.

 

“I apologise.”

 

“I don’t need your apology.” She spat back. “What I need for you to do is pack your bags and come back to 12 with me so I don’t have to tell a three year old that Uncle Gale is too much of an asshole to come home for a few days.”

 

“You wouldn’t dare, not to Effie’s kid.”

 

“You think I haven’t said worse in front of the Kid?”

 

“I bet Effie wasn’t too happy.”

 

“No she wasn’t but she’s probably call you worse if you don’t come.” Johanna sighed. “Look, I know things are bad between you and Lady JoyJoy, but you need to come. Arika is going to need familiar faces around her.” She paused. “And this isn’t going to be easy for Effie either.”

 

“She’s going to tell him?”

 

“I don’t think she’ll have to. Unless he’s gotten so infused with alcohol he can’t see anymore. One look at Arika and he’ll know.”

 

“Why didn’t she tell him before?”

 

“After four years, you still are asking? I doubt we'll ever know. That’s between Effie and him. None of our business. However we can make things better for that kid, and I for one am not going to deny her anything.

 

“You’ve gone soft on her.”

 

“Shut up. It's a toddler. If anyone is worth getting so called soft on it's a little three year old girl who doesn’t know you're broken and doesn’t care. You know she found out I was afraid of water and she gave me one of her bath toys, a rubber ducky, to protect me?” 

 

This wasn’t the Johanna he was familiar with.  Johanna liked to argue, but she never directly referenced her own emotions.  She tried to make everyone believe there was nothing left for her to feel anything about.  But clearly she cared for Arika, despite just calling her ‘The Kid’.  Enough to let the wall down and show her own weaknesses.

 

With that Johanna grabbed her bags and made her way to the guest bedroom.

 

~*~

 

He couldn’t say he was completely surprised when in the middle of the night he felt the sheets lift and a warm body scooted in behind him. He pretended to be asleep, not wanting to deal with Johanna while half asleep but he nearly flinched when she wrapped cold arms around his waist.

 

Jo had never been shy about physical affection. He knew it didn’t mean to her what it did to him. To her it was just another part of interaction. He had figured that out during their six month fling years ago. Joanna hadn’t been with him because of feelings, or rather the romantic variety. She was with him to relieve the tension, to meet a need. To silence a void.

 

“Don’t pretend, Hawthorne, I know you are awake.” she said, oddly quiet. Joanna had rarely ever been quiet. After so many years of having to silence herself to survive, she no longer cared to. 

 

“You have your own bed,” Gale mumbled into his pillow.

 

“But it lacks you.”

 

“You don’t need me to sleep.”

 

“Says you.” She lifted her head to place her chin on his shoulder, her right hand tracing shapes over his nightshirt. “I didn’t come here just for Arika. I...” He opened his eyes at the hesitation in her voice. She was rarely hesitant in the time he had known her. He shifted so he could look at her face, her arm sliding as he moved so that she was practically half on top on him. It was oddly intimate, something that one would expect of a couple that had been together for awhile, that had already figured out how to share the space.

 

They had never been a couple. Not even during that six months. There had been lots of sex, lots of passion, but rarely anything else. At least nothing he allowed himself to think about. There had been moments where he had felt something for the victor, but the day she walked out, he hid the small start of whatever it was beneath years of denial.

 

He hadn’t been ready for anything, he had still been mourning the destruction of his 

friendship with Katniss, but he felt that had they not combusted then there might have been something.

 

He knew better now.

 

“You came for me?” He asked, equally as quietly. Her face was only a few inches away from his, and the full awareness of her closeness started to become apparent to him. 

 

“In a way,” she responded. “You know that they still are making the victors who survived “the purge” talk to therapists, right?”

 

“I’ve heard references to it. I doubt all of you are actually going.”

 

“Well, it seemed to work for Peeta and Katniss, and I got tired of not being able to take a shower without a buddy,” a quick smile that came and left her lips told him that her thoughts had gone to when they had shared a shower, same as his. “So after I left here, I went traveling but I stayed in touch with a therapist in the Capital. Effie’s actually. The two of us were traveling together, and she was dealing with her demons same as me.”

 

She rested her head on his chest, and he moved his head slightly so that her head fitted right under his chin. 

 

“Anyway, the guy we were talking to started making sense every once and awhile. One of them was that I ran away from the few connections I did make. So I guess I came because I wanted to see if one of those connections was with you.”

 

“And you decided sneaking into my bed in the middle of the night was the right way to go about this?”

 

“Well, it never seemed to fail us before.” He didn’t need to see her face to know she was smirking. She sat up looking down on him and shifting so she was straddling his thighs. He couldn’t help but grin back at her. Their time together had been fun. He might not have been prepared for the abrupt end, but it had been fun and they had both gone in cleared eyed.

 

“I suppose that’s true. But I doubt this was what your therapist was going to suggest.”

 

“LIke I give a damn,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck as he sat up and moved her closer to him. “Do you?”

 

“No, not really.  I’m a little old to be your boy toy, Mason.”

 

“Gale,” she said, moving his face so he was looking straight at her. “I’m not here for that.  You weren’t....”  She sighed, looking away herself.  “Even back then you weren’t ‘just’ anything.  Its why I had to leave.  I couldn’t handle it.”

 

He had to admit he was a bit stunned. This wasn’t Jo being manipulative, this was Jo being vulnerable, and that was just something he had never expected to see, even after what had happened earlier that night.

 

“You couldn’t handle it?”

 

“What we had going on.  It was starting to become more...something.”  He leaned into her shoulder to hide his grin.  She couldn’t even say it, and despite being stunned by the admission, he was also amused by her lack of being able to understand.

 

“Love?”

 

“Don’t get mushy on me now.”

 

“You can’t even say it can you.”

 

“Of course I can...I just think words are worthless in the end.  People will say they love you and leave, say they’ll protect you and give you up.  There are few people in this world I trust to take them at their word.  Finn, but he’s dead, Annie, Peeta of course.  Katniss most days.  And You.”

 

“And you think telling me that you feel something for me by sneaking into my bed in the middle of the night is the best way to go about showing that?”

 

She shrugged.  “Why ruin a bad thing?”  Somewhere in the back of his head as he lifted his head and kissed her came the words he had once heard her say.   _ Love is Weird. _  Yes it certainly was, if it led him to find his first love in his best friend and fall a second time for a semi-mad woman with a streaking complex.

 

It was probably a poor idea. To let her change his mind like this, but then it was Johanna, and even if he had just admitted it to himself, he loved her. He hated her at times, but most of the time he loved her. And there was one thing he could always say- Johanna had never once lied to him.  She may have hid things from him, but she never lied.  If he asked, she answered.  If he didn;t, she didn’t relay the information.  She ran away from things that came to close, but clearly she fought her way back to him. 

 

She was changing, and maybe there was a chance for him to change too.  He wasn’t as emotionally scarred as she was, but he still had Prim’s ghost keeping him from going back to Twelve.  From seeing his mother, his siblings.  From seeing Katniss.  He hadn’t said a word to her since she left, and Katniss hadn’t tried to contact him either.  Occasionally he’d talk to Peeta, the two having found some kind of mutual ground over their desire to keep Katniss safe.  Peeta was a good man, and despite being the one who Katniss choose in the end, Gale was glad for his friendship.

 

He was still angry with Johanna, just a little bit, over how she left the last time, but he knew he could either push her away or accept that his feelings towards her hadn’t changed.  That they were going to have to work on it, just like Peeta and he had worked on their relationship.  It wouldn’t be easy, but then both of them were used to fighting against the odds.

 

“Fine, I’ll go.” he said as he broke the kiss.

 

“Okay, not that I’m going to let you go back on that, but seriously?  That is what you were thinking about while kissing me?”  She raised an eyebrow.  Her tone held mock outrage, so he was sure he hadn’t truly offended her.  He bit back the retort that would have actually offended her and just went for the easier route.

 

“Maybe if we can work, I can work things out there.”

“Oh, boy.  Don’t make me your reclamation project, Hawthorne.  I’m not your muse.”

 

“Don’t worry, Sweetheart. I don’t need one.”

  
  



End file.
